Auction Catalogue
Senegal, Bronze and silvered galvanos for an unadopted coinage, bust of Leopold Senghor, 225mm [2]. First extremely fine, second a little discoloured and slightly buckled but otherwise very fine, BOTH UNIQUE (£100-120)
Léopold Sédar Senghor (b.1906), poet and politician; educated in Dakar and at the Sorbonne. Senghor taught classics in Paris from 1935 and became a well known figure in literary and artistic circles. After the war he sat on the French National Assembly from 1946 to 1958 and became Senegal’s first president in 1960, serving until 1981. Senghor promoted a concept he called negritude which, in no way anti-European – and Senghor was always as much a French intellectual as African politician – advocated a return to African values and the promotion of African culture. The father of his country, Senghor was one of the most influential figures among his generation of African leaders and his writings are still widely admired in France and among the intellectual elite of French-speaking Africa
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